Linney

Linney

That sounds quite complex and jargonistic. So, to put it more simply, they are a family business which uses numerous outlets like social media, newspapers, billboards and radio to market products or ideas for other companies.

I had never heard of Linney until I was searching for jobs on the university careers portal and, from researching them, I was still fairly unsure who they were! But the job that was being advertised was for a writer to help create marketing campaigns. It sounded fun and different to anything else I had looked at so I thought I would apply.

The initial application involved writing fifty words about yourself and then sending in a piece of your writing which was approximately one thousand words in length. So much simpler than the personality tests and situational judgement tests. And I was fortunate enough to get selected for a day where potential candidates would attend a writer’s boot camp. Of all the applications they had selected about fifteen people to come to the boot camp.

The building that the create team at Linney work in was a very modern, clean yet chic building. The first impression was very positive and impressive.

We all met in the reception area before being taking into a medium sized meeting room. There was tea, coffee and a range of posh fruit juices as well as eight types of biscuit – all of which were thick and high quality!

We then gave short presentations about ourselves to the rest of the group and the three people who were assessing our suitability for a job in their team. I was nervous at first but everyone was very friendly and the atmosphere was quite relaxed so I managed to give a decent presentation.

Then we were given a tour of the create team building. There were lots of breakout areas, inside and outside as well as a large room with hundreds of computers and people working on a range of tasks. We got to see filming and editing studios, virtual reality sets and some exhibition spaces. It was a huge place and there was so much going on. It was fascinating.

During the day we had to complete three writing activities.

One was to create some Instagram posts for the beauty range Masqd which Boots have recently released and Linney were doing some of the marketing.

Another was to summarise what had happened at a recent event which Linney was involved in for their company magazine. This involved creating a headline, a stand first and the main article which could only be one hundred and fifty words long.

The final activity was to produce a thirty second television piece to be used on the university television channel to explain what had been happening during the day.

Each task was challenging but I really enjoyed completing them. The diversity of what you could do each day appealed to me and the time limits we were given due to the amount that needed to be done made it more exciting too.

Linney provided an amazing buffet lunch for us all and, as we left, we were given goody bags of fruit, nuts, crisps, cake and drinks. We also got pens which are always useful!

It was a great experience and, although they didn’t give me a job, I was glad that I got to go to the writer’s boot camp. I made some new friends, used a new train and bus route and proved to myself that I wasn’t so bad at interviews and working in the real world.